Changes to WEC Sebring distance, time

This season’s Sebring World Endurance Championship race has been shortened to 1000 miles and moved to a Friday afternoon/night timeslot.

WEC will share the billing with IMSA’s 12 Hours of Sebring in March 2019 as part of the 2018/19 ‘Super Season’.

It had originally intended on running a 1500mi race which would start in the early hours of the Sunday morning, a couple of hours after the finish of the IMSA race.

The WEC race has now moved forward in the schedule to start on Friday afternoon and continue into the evening, with an eight-hour time limit now imposed.

Sebring will build a new pit complex next to Ullman Straight (back straight) for WEC teams.

The scheduling decision was made after a meeting between series organisers and circuit management at Sebring last month.

“Everyone went in to the meeting with a willingness to find a solution that worked well for all of us, and the key points such as the schedule and the pit lane and paddock were agreed very quickly,” said WEC boss Gerard Neveu.

“We would like to sincerely thank Scott Atherton and all his team at IMSA, Wayne Estes and his staff at Sebring for the co-operation, flexibility and positive attitude they displayed throughout the recent weekend.”

IMSA president Atherton said, “There has been a lot of speculation surrounding the initial announcement of this combined event, but we always believed we could all find solutions to the many questions and challenges that needed to be addressed to host two world-class events on one weekend. And that’s exactly what we did.

“In the weeks and months ahead, we know this spirit of cooperation will continue as we complete the process of planning what promises to be an unprecedented showcase of sports car endurance racing for the fans – and competitors in each championship.”

The WEC 2018/19 Prologue takes place this Friday and Saturday at Paul Ricard, while the 1000 Miles of Sebring is set down for March 13-15 and will be Round 6 of 8.